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I had an appointment at 10 am this morning with new CPN. My alarm was set for 8 so that I would have enough time to have a shower, take the dogs a walk and then get to the CMHT building. But I’d been awake most of the night so when the alarm went off I hit ‘snooze’ every ten minutes until I realised it was 9.40 am and I was still in my pyjamas. I decided I would cancel the appointment but then thought I had better go. So I didn’t bother with a shower, scraped my hair back and turned up ten minutes late.

The first thing she did when we sat down was apologise for being off sick. Inside I wanted to say to her that I could really have done with at least the offer of support (from another CPN just whilst she was sick) and bring up the fact that she knew all that in advance but instead I just said it was OK.

She then asked how Christmas and New Year had gone and I told her they were OK, pretty quiet, I told her I’d been to my parents for Christmas Dinner then gone again on Thursday and saw some other family members I’d not seen for a while. I told her I couldn’t really relax and enjoy myself as I was feeling pretty anxious and she seemed surprised at this and questioned me on why I become anxious at my parents house when I get on well with them. I shrugged my shoulders and said I don’t know why, that it doesn’t really matter where I am, even when I feel completely safe a wave of anxiety can just come out of nowhere and build and build until it’s affecting me badly enough for other people to notice.

I had made the decision that I was going to try and tell her about the ‘blood letting’ I was doing but as I’ve not done that in nearly a week I didn’t know whether to tell her or not. So instead I told her about the pressure cooker feeling with regards to the self harm, that everyone keeps saying that I should be so proud of myself for going this long without doing it (well not doing it badly enough to need medical attention so they don’t find out) and also people commenting on how proud I should be for staying out of hospital for so long. I was trying to explain to her that on the inside I was really struggling and she hit me with something I wasn’t expecting. She started suggesting that the fear and struggling feelings I’m having could be because I am scared of getting well and scared of accepting that I am back in control again and the self harm behaviour isn’t controlling me any longer, I am controlling it and this makes me scared??… Apparently every time I start to say something positive I always add in the words “but” and “should” therefore playing down any achievements I’ve made and how I should count the amount of times I say the word “but” the next time I did some writing. Sorry new CPN I can’t be fucked to count.

Everything she was saying just felt wrong. I wanted to ask her to shut up and be quiet at one point so I could try and express to her what it is that I’m feeling on the inside, I wanted to talk about the reasons why I feel that hurting myself will provide me with relief, but she just rambled on something about how disappointed I’d be in myself and how disappointed the people who love and care about me would be to know I’d cut again. And then she spouted some more stuff telling me to really think about what self harming had actually achieved in my life and before I could answer, she answered for me, it had done nothing to help me and just left me “covered in scars” that have left me “ashamed” of my body. I felt myself almost hunch over as the realisation went through my head that I don’t think this is going to work out. Me and new CPN I mean. I’m not saying that things she says don’t have some truth to them, they usually do, but I never feel like she gives me the opportunity to properly open up to her, so instead I give her little snippets to test the water and then decide I don’t want to say any more, so I sat for the last ten or fifteen minutes pretty much in total silence, unable to keep eye contact with her, just staring at the floor mainly and waiting on her to finish.

I know we have only met a handful of times and I know there was a 3 or 4 week gap in appointments there but I just don’t feel as though I’m warming to her. I feel like she wants to just emphasise the good things in my life, not talk so much about the bad things and in turn I’m not opening up to her so the appointments are a bit of a waste of time. I don’t dislike her as such, I just feel as though I come out of our appointments feeling worse than when I went in.

And that’s pretty much how I’ve felt for the remainder of the day – worse. Like I needed to share the intensity of the self harm urges, I wanted to open up about the giggle and the head crazies happening more often, I wanted to tell her about all the sucking syringes of blood out of myself and the badness that remains inside of me. But I couldn’t say any of it and all I could hear were her words going round and round in my head this afternoon, about me being ashamed of my body because it’s so scarred and then I felt even more self conscious of my body and the need to cut became ridiculously intense so I took myself and the dogs out for a walk in the rain and to try and calm myself down a bit. Along with some Diazepam I came home nearly an hour later in a slightly calmer frame of mind, but to be honest I’ve felt pretty confused and mixed up through to this evening.

I have to get a new prescription on Wednesday and have the choice of making an appointment and going to see lovely GP or just handing in a repeat prescription request form. I can talk easier to lovely GP and whilst I don’t know that she can really offer me much help in just a ten minute slot, I think maybe I would feel better if I at least told someone who I feel understands me that things aren’t all smelling of roses like new CPN was making out.

Anyway it’s now 9.15 pm and I’m going to take the dogs for a walk and take my medication a little earlier with the hope of getting a better night’s sleep tonight. I still haven’t contacted best friend and saw she had put some quote as her status on Facebook that was something like “no matter how much you care for someone, you can only try so many times before you have to walk away” – call me paranoid (I quite possibly am) but it felt like it was directed at me. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe I’m just feeling a little over sensitive to everything tonight.

So I see new CPN again next week on Wednesday. If it goes the same way that today did and I come out feeling even more mental than when I went in, I think it might really be time to question whether or not I’m going to be able to develop an effective working relationship with her. She is a nice enough person, friendly and smiling, but she just doesn’t seem to want to listen to (or talk about) the bad emotions I experience and puts way too much emphasis on the ‘positives’ and all it does is confuse me. I am glad that to the outside world it appears as though I’m coping better than ever as it prevents people worrying about me, but in reality all it really means is that I’m getting better at hiding my inner turmoils and bottling them up so they end up adding to the pressure of the pressure cooker.

*Argh* I want to go to the very top of a hill in the middle of nowhere and scream until I can scream no more. I really really need to try and de-stress myself, this mixed up mess of a head is just making me feel a whole lot worse.